Useful Travel Planning Resources

Planning a trip? Here's my roundup of useful travel planning resources:

(1) Making Reservations:

• Voyij.com (aggregates deals from other sites, e.g., Kayak, Priceline, Hotwire, etc.)
• 10 Ways to Cut Your Travel Costs This Year (NYTimes)

(2) Travel Planning:

• GetSetApp: Comparing the cost of travel by air, bus or car
  
• Frugal Traveler's Review of Travel Websites
  
• Frugal Traveling Strategies
• Buy Now or Later? Planning for Summer Travel

(3) Exchange Rates & ATM Fees

• Exchange Rate Surcharges and ATM Fees for the International Traveler

(4) Trains

• Germany's DB Bahn English Book Site

(5) Taxis & Cabs

• World Taximeter: International Taxi Fare Calculator
  
• Resources for Calculating Cab Fares & Booking Cabs

(6) Hotels:

• Hotel Rewards Cheat Sheet (NerdWallet.com)
  
• 7 Strategies for Hotel Upgrades (CNN.com)
• HotelChatter's Annual WiFi Report (find out which hotels offer the best/free wifi, which hotels offer the worst wifi before you book your hotel stay)
  
• Hostelling International New York (cheap lodging in New York City)
  

(7) Air Travel

• Resources for Planning Your Air Travel
• Tips On Finding A Comfortable Coach Seat Without Upgrading
• Saving Money On Your Summer Air Travel
• How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane

(8) Packing

• Fly Safe, Fly Smart: Pack Like the Pros
  
• One-Page Checklist: Packing Everything into One Bag

(9) Useful Information:

• Live Train Map for the London Underground
• Traveling? Find the Best Spots in New Cities with these Tools (Lifehacker)

Resources for Planning Your Air Travel

My round up of useful air travel planning resources:

(1) Airfares:

• Whatever You Do, Don't Buy an Airline Ticket On... (Wall Street Journal)
  
• What is the best day to buy cheap airfare? (ABCNews) FareCompare's Rick Seaney shares his 10 things you should know to get the best flight deals -- Highly Recommended
  
• Airline Ticket Surcharges for Peak Domestic Travel – Avoid the Most Expensive Days(FareCompare) -- Highly Recommended
  
• The Frequent Flier's Guide to Finding Cheap Airfare (Lifehacker) -- Highly Recommended
  
• Booking a Flight the Frugal Way (NYTimes.com) -- Highly Recommended
  

• Hipmunk.com - a new flight search engine that provides search results in easy-to-read charts -- Highly Recommended
  
• ITA Matrix Lets You Find Cheap Airfare, Plus Advanced Routing Codes, Minus Ad Clatter(Consumerist.com)
  

• Cheap Airfare Links & Bookmarks (MyMoneyBlog.com) - useful list of links
  
• Fly for Less (Kiplinger.com) -- good advice on how to land a cheap air fare
  
• Voyij.com (aggregates deals from other sites, e.g., Kayak, Priceline, Hotwire, etc.)
• Frugal Traveling Strategies
• Delta Airlines Fare Chart
• United Airlines Fare Chart

(2) Airline Fees:

• A Staggering Look at Baggage Fees (Hipmunk Blog)
  
• Your Complete Big-Ass Guide To Annoying Airline Fees (Consumerist)
  
• Airline Baggage Fees (DansDeals.com)
  
• Useful Table of Airline Fees (Kayak.com)

(3) Searching for Best Seats:

• How to Get Exit Row Seats (includes chart of airline policies)
  
• How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane
• Tips On Finding A Comfortable Coach Seat Without Upgrading

(4) Packing

• Fly Safe, Fly Smart: Pack Like the Pros
  
• One-Page Checklist: Packing Everything into One Bag

(5) Tracking Your Flights

• Live Flight Tracker: Flightlite

(6) At the Airport:

• Security Checkpoint Secrets: How to Dodge the Lines at Top US Airports(Frommers.com) -- Highly recommended!

(7) Flight Cancellations:

• 3 Reasons You're Doing It Wrong When Your Flight Is Cancelled (Hipmunk.com)
  
• Airlines Play The No-Fault Card (New York Times Practical Traveler) - excellent article on your options in the event your flight is cancelled.
• 10 tips for avoiding delayed/cancelled flights and what to do if all else fails(airfarewatchdog)
  

(8) Getting Bumped:

• Fly Safe, Fly Smart: An Expert's Guide to Getting Bumped (Frommers.com)
• How I scored 4 free flights last year - all without using frequent flyer miles(MoneyCrashers.com)
  

(9) Airline Customer Service, Lost Luggage & Filing Complaints:

• Fly Safe, Fly Smart: What To Do About Lost Luggage (Frommers.com)
  
• If an airline loses your luggage, get compensation (Consumerist)
  
• How to Deal With Lost Luggage (FoxNews)

(10) Airline Customer Service & Filing Complaints:

• Fly Safe, Fly Smart: How to Complain to the Airlines (Frommers.com)
  
• On Your Side: Phone Numbers & Emails of Executives
• When all else fails: Filing a complaint wih the DOT's Aviation Consumer Protection and Enforcement Office
  

(11) Miscellaneous

• Fly Safe, Fly Smart: How to Beat Jet Lag (Frommers.com)
  

See also my previous blog postings:

• Saving Money On Your Summer Air Travel
  
• Frugal Traveler's Review of Travel Websites
  
• Buy Now or Later? Planning for Summer Travel

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Live Flight Tracker: Flightlite

Flightlite is a live flight tracker that allows you to track in the air flights around the world. This is a very useful website to find out whether a flight you are waiting for, has taken off and en route as scheduled. All you need to do is enter the flight number or airline name into the search box and flightlite will either track the specific flight you entered or show you a list of the flights you can track if you enter the name of the airline.

Link: Flightlite

Exchange Rate Surcharges and ATM Fees for the International Traveler

The summer travel season is coming and for folks who are traveling abroad and planning to use their credit cards or ATM cards, Lowcards.com has an excellent article, Credit Card Tips for the International Traveler, which explains how the credit exchange rate surcharges work, and the rates currently charged by the various financial institutions, as well as ATM-fees for cash withdrawal from foreign ATMs.

Link to article: Credit Card Tips for the International Traveler

See also my other postings on credit cards:

• More on Credit Cards
  
• Dealing with Credit Cards
• Careful Use of Credit Cards
• Credit Cards and Frugal Living
  

Resources For Calculating Cab Fares & Booking Cabs

Afraid of being cheated by cab drivers when you're traveling?

Here are useful resources for calculating cab fares and booking cabs in major US cities:

• Taxifarefinder.com
• TaxiWiz.com
• TaxiMagic.com

Tips On Finding A Comfortable Coach Seat Without Upgrading

It's high season for summer travel and airlines are enticing would be travelers with all sorts of fare sales to fill empty seats. I have previously blogged about "saving money on your summer air travel."

It is one thing to save money by finding the cheapest air tickets, it is quite another thing to find a comfortable coach seat without paying extra or upgrading, in view of the fact that airlines are shrinking legroom to squeeze more seats into planes.

I swear by www.seatguru.com to help me figure out which seats are the most comfortable (e.g., lots of legroom). After finding the seats I want, it's time to figure out how to book those seats. In order to do just that, I have learned a great deal from the following resources:

• Window or Aisle? How to Increase Your Odds (New York Times Practical Traveler)


• The Shrinking Airline Seat (Independent Traveler)
  


• How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane (Frommer's)


• Getting Comfy in Coach (Condé Nast Traveler)

See also my previous blog postings:

• Saving Money On Your Summer Air Travel
  
• Frugal Traveler's Review of Travel Websites
  
• How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane
• Frugal Traveling Strategies
• Buy Now or Later? Planning for Summer Travel

Saving Money on Your Summer Air Travel

Summer has begun! Frugality is the new buzzword these days and everyone is looking to save money. Holiday travel is no difference. Over the years of traveling, I have discovered ways of saving money on air travel by experience. Here they are, in no particular order:

• If time is on my side, which is the case with leisure travel, I always use www.yapta.com to help me track air fares. www.yapta.com tracks the ups and downs of the flights I'm interested in. When the price drops to my target level, I make a beeline to the airline's website to book my flights. In addition, www.yapta.com also has fare/rate deals that might work for you.
  


• If time is not on my side, i.e., I need to travel on specific dates and times at short notice for busines trips, I start my flight search on www.kayak.com and www.mobissimo.com to ascertain what the cheapest rates are. Being obsessive compulsive, I double check by searching on www.orbitz.com and www.travelocity.com even though these two sites are aggregated in www.kayak.com and www.mobissimo.com. I have discovered that no two websites give me exactly the same results, and hence I hedge my bets by searching everything.
  


• Once I find the fares I want (within my budget/target range), I avoid booking fees by booking directly using the airline's website. I find that many airline websites' sometimes run special fare sales from time to time, or more frequently, award bonus airmiles for booking with them.


• I also sign up for the airlines' e-mail lists of last minute deeply discounted tickets. These tickets are usually only offered the beginning of the week for weekend travel, so you have to be willing to travel on very short notice. Also, these tickets have restrictions on departure and return flights, so you would have to be willing to plan your travel around these restrictions.


• As a frugal traveler, I always travel deeply discounted coach. But this does not mean that I consent to be stuck in the dreaded middle seat. Before I book my flights, I always consulted my trusted guide to airplane seating, www.seatguru.com, which allows me to identify the decent and comfortable coach seats on my flights.
  


• It seems to me that the cheapest flights tend to be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (unless they are holidays), as well as Saturdays. I try to book my travel on these days, whenever possible. I also try to avoid Mondays and Fridays, which tend to be more expensive.


• If you can spare some time, hang around in www.flyertalk.com, which bills itself as "an interactive community that provides up-to-date information on travel-related loyalty rewards program." I have learned so much about finding deals listening in to the conversations of hardcore road warriors who know the ins and outs of air travel better than I do.

See also my previous blog postings:

• Frugal Traveler's Review of Travel Websites
  
• How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane
• Frugal Traveling Strategies
• Buy Now or Later? Planning for Summer Travel

Frugal Traveler's Review of Travel Websites

The New York Times' Frugal Traveler's most recent blog posting: Travel Web Sites: A Click-On Showdown is a much read if you are planning your summer travel. Here you will find the lowdown on various travel websites and which ones land the best travel bargains.

From my own experience, I can safely say that no one website is the cheapest. Unfortunately, you have to search all the websites to find the best deals.

For more information, see my previous blog postings:

• How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane
• Frugal Traveling Strategies

Good news for summer travelers: online travel agencies end fees

As I was glancing through my morning news, this article caught my eye: U.S. online travel agencies end airline booking fees. This is certainly good news for summer travelers looking to save on fees.

Before you book your airline ticket for that summer getaway, here are my previous blog postings that might interest you:

• How to get the best seat on the plane


• Frugal traveling strategies

How to Get The Best Seat On the Plane

How do you balance frugal traveling with comfort? Is it possible to get a decent (and even comfortable) seat in coach? Sascha Segan's latest article in Frommer's, How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane explains how you can land that elusive seat, with help from www.seatguru.com, which I myself consult regularly when I plan my own air travel. It is possible to travel frugally yet comfortably. You just need to do some sleuthing.

Link: How to Get The Best Seat on the Plane

See also my earlier blog posting:

• Frugal Traveling Strategies
• Buy Now or Later? Planning for Summer Travel

Buy now or later? Planning for Summer Travel

If you are one of those who are planning a vacation this summer and waiting for the prices of airfares to drop, you might be interested in the discussion of buying strategies in this New York Times' Practical Traveler column, Airfare Debate: Buy Now or Wait? This article discusses the pros and cons of buying now or waiting, tracking fares at different online sites, and offers these words of advice:

But predicting airfares is a bit like forecasting the weather. Even with the most sophisticated technology, you can still be way off. Ultimately, travelers must decide for themselves when to push the buy button.

For my earlier discussions:
Orbitz's New Marketing Tactic: Full Disclosure of Actual Pricing
Frugal Traveling Strategies

Orbitz's New Marketing Tactic: Full Disclosure of Actual Pricing

Online travel agency Orbitz.com announced that it would start including all taxes and fees in its initial price display for hotels on Orbitz.com instead of just the base rate, in an attempt to stimulate loyalty among price-sensitive customers amid economic recession (source: Reuters).

I have shared my views on the online travel booking websites that I frequently use: Frugal Traveling Strategies

Frugal Traveling Strategies

I am proud to say that I have always searched for bargains when I travel, whether for business or pleasure. Over the years, I have assembled my own favorites websites for hunting bargain deals:

• Mobissimo.com (which bills itself as the world's most comprehensive travel search engine. I go to this site when I need to search for bargain deals for international travel)


• Farecast.com (an airfare prediction service -- very useful to gauge airfare prices for pleasure travel, when your travel plans are flexible)
  


• Kayak.com (another travel search engine aggregator that I visit)


• Travelocity.com (an old standby -- I use this site to double check for bargains)


• Orbitz.com (another old standby -- I use this site to double check for bargains)

After checking these sites, I also visit the airlines' and hotels' own websites, in case they have exclusive deals. Whenever possible, I try to book through the airlines' own sites to avoid the booking fee. Sometimes this is not possible (e.g., I have found cheap international airfares on Mobissimo.com that were not available on the airlines' own sites).

In addition, you should also check out PCMag.com's 10 Sites For Cheap Flights, which provides additional sites and comments that you could use to sniff out cheap air fares.